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Post by Stu Venable on Jan 2, 2014 16:12:56 GMT -8
I watched Hara-kiri:death of a Samurai. It's a 2011 film, and it's on netflix. -----+++++===== SPOILERS =====+++++----- It's the story of a the LI house, which is a well-to-do house in Edo. A scruffy looking Ronin comes in and requests to use their courtyard to commit ritual suicide. After talking with him briefly, the guy in charge tells him the story of the last guy who came in and asked to commit suicide. This other guy they suspected of a "suicide bluff," wherein a destitute Ronin asks to commit suicide in a wealthy family's courtyard. The implication being that destitute Ronin are doing this with great frequency with other wealthy families. They decide to make an example out of this guy, and they called his bluff. "Sure you can use our courtyard." He'd long since sold his swords, so his wakizashi was made of bamboo. His second refused to finish the deal until he was able to get the bamboo sword deep enough into his guts to satisfy the second. It's a very gruesome scene. I don't know about the historical veracity of the story, but it makes me wonder about ritual suicide. How often would samurai be permitted to commit ritual suicide? Obviously in game terms, this should be determined by the story, but I do wonder how common ritual suicide was. And more importantly, how often was a request to commit ritual suicide some sort of a ploy or expression of bravado?
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maxinstuff
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Post by maxinstuff on Jan 2, 2014 20:34:04 GMT -8
That is really very interesting.
"What do you mean I'm not worthy? I'll kill myself right now you bastard!"
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D.T. Pints
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Post by D.T. Pints on Jan 2, 2014 21:26:05 GMT -8
I loved that film! Very grim but engaging. Two wakizashis up!....in the guts.
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fredrix
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Post by fredrix on Jan 3, 2014 12:29:09 GMT -8
Just the once
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Post by The Northman on Jan 3, 2014 19:48:11 GMT -8
There are examples in history of samurai being given a wooden wakizashi along with their lord's permission to commit seppuku, It was a huge insult, basically accusing the offending samurai of being too cowardly to carry out the act.
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Post by joecrak on Jan 4, 2014 6:54:34 GMT -8
The book also provides references to kanshi, which is requesting seppuku in protest of unjust orders
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